Sleeping with Ghosts
by heroes for ghosts
Summary: One shot. Kitty angst. Also featuring Piotr and Pete. R for strong language and some sexual conduct.


Title: Sleeping with Ghosts  
  
A/N: My original intent was to write a one shot based off of "Sic Transit Gloria" by Brand New featuring Kitty and Piotr. This is sort of the companion piece to the still unwritten fic, just scribbled out so I could figure out the back-story. I'm probably taking huge liberties with time lines and such, but I'm really unfamiliar with the 6-month gap. So just assume this all works: Kitty has just saved the X-Men from the Neo and falls down to Earth and lands in Sweden, while at the same time Pete is with X-Force. So yeah, give it a read and tell me what you think!  
  
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The sea's evaporated Though it comes as no surprise These clouds we're seeing Their explosions in the sky It seems it's written But we can't read between the lines  
  
Hush It's okay Dry your eye Dry your eye Soulmate dry your eye Dry your eye Soulmate dry your eye Cause soulmates never die -Placebo  
  
***********  
  
They didn't come for me.  
  
I saved all their asses, nearly sacrificed my own and they didn't come to find me. My heart was broken, and not completely by Seth. But by Pete. Again.  
  
Because as I was free falling through space and the atmosphere, I saw England. I had been avoiding maps and globes for months, just so I wouldn't have to see that country. London and Pete are just so closely connected I can't separate them. Missing London is the same thing as missing Pete.  
  
I woke up in Stockholm; I must have blacked out or fallen asleep during the very end of the fall. I kept Wolverine's bone claws close in my pocket, but I didn't need them. No one wanted to hurt me. So, for a while, I waited.  
  
I think initially I was too scattered to contemplate getting myself back to the States and back to Xavier's on my own. But after a while, after they didn't show and after I didn't hear from them, I became like a petulant child. I was proving a point. I wasn't going anywhere until they came to get me.  
  
Needless to say, I didn't go anywhere for a while.  
  
I stayed in Stockholm while I was waiting, and I got a job in an American bar. The manager recognized me from Excalibur. It was the only reason I got hired.  
  
For a while, I liked it there. The vast majority of patrons were Swedes, and their voices and languages were so different from the Americans, the Brits, that I couldn't confuse anyone. But tourist season rolled around. And the place was over-run with Londoners. And they still hadn't come.  
  
I sent out Wolverine's bone claws, as a bit of a threat to them, and started making my way across the continent. Every step took me closer to London. I thought my heart was going to die.  
  
It wasn't until I got back to Xavier's (no, Kitty, don't call it home) that I learned that Pete hadn't been in London after all. The two had separated. He had been with X-Force in the States.  
  
I have to remember to keep this past tense.  
  
So while he was nearby to Xavier's, while he was becoming a small part of the X-community, while they all knew where he was, I was left crossing the ocean alone without anyone coming to find me, to take care of me.  
  
They didn't think to tell me about him, of course. You would think that once it happened, they would redouble efforts, if there ever were any, to find me so I could know. But they didn't even tell me once I showed up at their door again.  
  
Pete is hurt. No, no, past tense. Pete was hurt. Pete was killed. And they told me as if it was nothing, as if they just remembered. Like 'oh, remember to pick up some milk' or 'oh, your mother called for you today', it was 'oh, Pete died a few weeks ago while you were missing'.  
  
They wonder now why I don't leave my room much.  
  
I could have tolerated Logan's company, as he doesn't usually spout off the empty Hallmark lines that Ororo tends to. I would have loved to spend time with Illyana, if she was still alive. But she's dead, as dead as Pete is, as dead as I feel.  
  
I spent time with Piotr instead.  
  
He didn't talk much, thank God. He painted a lot, and I would sit in the same room and be a million miles away. I think he was terrified of me. I think that most of the people in Xavier's were terrified of me. Most of them had heard the howl I let out when Ororo told me about Pete. But Piotr had seen and heard more than most. He had seen the way my eyes looked through him. He had seen the way I would fight in the Danger Room, the way I would kill. But he kept after me.  
  
He might have been painting me all the time, for all I know, I was too dead to reality to notice. But one evening I did notice. A sketch he had left behind while he was at dinner. Me, beautiful in a way that I never was, my face a mix of grand heroics and generic tragedy. One of my nipples was peeking through the pencil drawn shirt.  
  
So I fucked him that night. It might have scared him, to wake up and see me above him, a loose nightshirt hanging low on my shoulders. I don't know. He didn't say anything. His lips formed into a tiny 'o' and I pressed my mouth against his, as if to smoother him. We didn't kiss.  
  
Piotr, Pete. Don't think I haven't noticed the similarities. Both older men, both foreign with accents, both with dark hair, light eyes. Both adored me at some point in their lives, both betrayed me and were betrayed by him.  
  
I didn't pull any punches that night, either. I scratched him with my nails. I bit him. Piotr, for his part, was gentle as he could be and I growled at him to hurt me. Be aggressive. Be passionate. Be Pete.  
  
But for the most part, he just lied there. He made noises, he whimpered, I knew he came and there were a few halfhearted pinches and nips. But his eyes were terrified. So I looked at everything but his eyes. I studied his hair, the blackness of it, trying to picture it longer, more unkempt. I looked at everything but him.  
  
Near the beginning, he called me Katya. Don't fucking call me that, I told him, and he stopped. I think somewhere near the middle of it he said he loved me. It took everything in me not to laugh till I was violently ill on him.  
  
In the end, it didn't help much. It didn't do much for me, and within two months, Piotr was dead. Killed himself. For science, of course.  
  
Loss isn't a stranger to me. And when Piotr died, then they all cared, they all came. They liked me so much more when I was with Piotr. They didn't like who I was with Pete. I made too much gray area for them, then. I disturbed the natural order of things; I refused to be simple.  
  
I'm not black or white though. I am gray.  
  
I'm shadow.  
  
In the end, I left them all. I missed London too much. 


End file.
